1,720,966 research outputs found
Understanding the link between physical capability markers, sarcopenia and frailty and adverse health outcomes
Full text linkAlthough chronological age is the main determinant of ageing, physical and social environment factors play a crucial role in healthy ageing, even in earlier stages of life. Physical and biological limitations are not, necessarily, restricted to older ages. Therefore, considering the predicted rapid increase in the number of older people worldwide along with its individual and societal burden, research into healthy ageing – including middle-aged and older individuals – is a priority.
Physical capability is the ability to perform the basic and instrumental activities of daily living. As the decline in physical function occurs progressively with age, the study of this process should start earlier in life and not only during older age. Low levels of physical capability markers (such as grip strength, muscle mass and physical performance [gait speed]) are strong predictors of future health, including premature mortality, cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases in middle-aged and old-aged populations. With age, the decline in physical function could occur in more than one marker. Consequently, the study of combined physical capability markers and their clinical combinations ‘sarcopenia’ and ‘frailty’ needs to be further explored using prospective data with common and non-common adverse health outcomes.
Considering the associations of physical capability, sarcopenia, and frailty with adverse health outcomes are not fully understood (both investigated in isolation and as the combined effect), the main aim of this thesis was to determine the associations between measures of physical capability, sarcopenia, and frailty and a range of health outcomes, including mortality, cardiovascular (CVD) and respiratory diseases.
To achieve this general aim, seven papers were completed and included in this thesis. Since the overall prevalence of frailty was already estimated using different classifications, the first paper included in this thesis systematically reports and summarises the overall prevalence of sarcopenia (and severe sarcopenia) using different global classifications. Using 6 main classifications, I estimated that the overall prevalence of sarcopenia ranges from 10% to 27% according to the classification used while the prevalence of severe sarcopenia ranges to 2 to 9%. Then, data from the UK Biobank study was used to investigate the association between the exposures and health outcomes. UK Biobank is a general cohort study that recruited over 500,000 participants between 2006 and 2010. Participants aged 37-73 years attended one of the 22 assessment research centres across Scotland, England and Wales at baseline.
Using the UK Biobank data, the other six studies were carried out. Across these manuscripts, the associations between different exposures - combinations of sarcopenia, frailty, and individual physical capabilities – and adverse outcomes were determined in each manuscript included: incident and mortality for CVD, respiratory diseases, osteoporosis, cancer, COVID-19, dementia as well as all-cause mortality.
In terms of individuals physical capability markers, the strongest association was identified between slow gait speed and incident COPD and respiratory disease as well as all-cause, respiratory and CVD. For incident osteoporosis instead, low muscle mass, followed by slow gait speed, were associated with a higher risk in both sexes. Regarding combinations of physical capability markers, slow gait speed plus low muscle mass, followed for severe sarcopenia, demonstrated the strongest association with incident respiratory disease and all-cause mortality. In terms of osteoporosis, pre-sarcopenic men and sarcopenic women showed a stronger association with incident osteoporosis. The study of the combination between frailty and sarcopenia categories identified that the highest CVD and respiratory risk was identified among frail and sarcopenic individuals. In addition, individuals with more than one clinical condition (frailty, sarcopenia, cachexia, and malnutrition) had almost five times higher risk of dying than those with none (hazard ratio (HR): 4.96 [95% CI: 2.73 to 9.01]). Finally, when frailty was investigated in isolation, I demonstrated that, independently of the frailty classification used, those with pre-frail or frail had a higher risk of severe covid-19. Moreover, pre-frail and frail individuals had an increased risk of all-cause dementia independently of confounder factors such as morbidity (HR pre-frail: 1.21 [95% CI: 1.04 to 1.42] and HR frail: 1.98 [95% CI: 1.47 to 2.67]).
Therefore, this thesis demonstrated that individuals with lower physical capability, sarcopenia and/or frailty had a higher risk of adverse health outcomes, including: incidence and mortality for osteoporosis, CVD, respiratory disease, cancer, COVID-19, dementia, and all-cause mortality. These associations remained even after adjustment for a large range of potential confounders and existed both in middle-aged and older adult sub-groups.
Considering that the age-related decline in physical capability markers, and therefore sarcopenia and frailty, could be delay and prevented, health interventions to improve physical capability that may reduce the risk of these outcomes are more urgent than ever
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902
No full textIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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